Presswatch/Silly Season
Ledeen, Michael
Seth's final revenge, "the old shade's last shady deal," are of scant help in explaining the situation. The Crawford countian's custom of determining the market value of his franchise has usually...
...seven years—changing its ideological skin from gauchiste to center-right—it may very well be that we are in the midst of a similar change, at long last...
...But this is nothing: The disinherited endure simultaneously social injustice and the terrifying Islamic justice...
...PRESSWATCH Armando Valladares's book, Against All Hope,' has attracted a lot of attention here: Stephen Rosenfeld and Richard Cohen in the Washington Post, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Suzanne Garment in the Wall Street Journal, and others, have all been deeply moved by this ac-count of a man who survived twenty-two horrible years as a political prisoner in Cuba...
...Could a defense system be overcome by a determined offense...
...They could then be mailed out as our "investigative journalists" get dry behind the ears .. . 'This month, in honor of the silly season in America, we leave our own media to their summer diversions (mass murder of judicial nominees, the ceaseless struggle against SDI, the lust for an arms control agreement, the demand for more and bigger summits) and turn to three outstanding articles in the foreign press...
...That is, in concrete terms: fewerhouses and schools, fewer jobs for everyone, including the blacks...
...And just as French political culture underwent an amazing transformation in those Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares...
...And that, dear friends, comes from the official publication of the Socialist party of Italy, written by Signor Ermanno Bruzzo...
...Perhaps there should be some form postcards printed up, saying, "Welcome to the real world...
...Should one not remember the failure of all economic reforms that have been proclaimed from time to time in the USSR...
...Way back in 1979, a collection of Valladares's poems appeared in France (Prisonnier de Castro), with an introduction by Pierre Golendorf that ex-posed the horror of Castro's prisons at the same time it documented the remarkably favorable treatment accorded Castro by the French press during the 1978 Youth Festival in Havana...
...Included in the Guide are clear, readable answers to such questions as: STRATEGY • Will strategic defense really make nuclear weapons "obsolete...
...A right-wing coalition not only would mean an end to reform, but would reverse those already enacted...
...The first concerns the personal ties that a Western leader can establish with communist leaders...
...I am reliably informed that she exclaimed, "Why didn't we know all this...
...His essential concern remains his continued stay in power...
...The least that can be said is that the experience does not lend strength to the hopes shown by M. Mitterrand...
...The fact remains that M. Mitterrand's remarks went far beyond due politeness and raise at least two questions...
...Still and all, it seems a momentous concern to many charged with satisfying the public's right to know...
...More than a million victims...
...Is it not illusory to believe that when an important decision has to be made such ties will be taken into ac-count by the other side...
...Alfred A. Knopf, $18.95...
...M. Giscard d'Estaing—who genuinely admired M. Gierek and who believed he could persuade THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986 31 M. Brezhnev to alter his policy in Afghanistan—learned this harsh lesson...
...Packaged in a concise question-and-answer format, the Guide offers 16 mini-essays on the basic issues of strategic defense policy and science...
...The support of the industrial democracies is lacking when it is desperately needed in order for the reforms to be carried out...
...Jean-Francois Revel, at the time editor of L' Express in Paris, devoted an entire issue of the magazine to Cuba and wrote the lead editorial, entitled "Cuba: The End of the Myth...
...How will US allies react?TECHNOLOGY • Can a "Star Wars" shield actually be built...
...it would be astonishing if he had not long ago learned the lessons of Khrushchev's experience...
...Michael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies...
...Jack Kemp The National Strategy Information Center is a non-partisan tax-exempt institution organized in 1962 to conduct educational programs in international security affairs...
...She was not alone, and the embarrassing thing is the tone of surprise in so many commentaries, as when the Washington Post tells us in an editorial that it is now okay to be anti-Castro...
...Seth Denbo would have enjoyed it all hugely...
...The Soviets gave the president a very good reception...
...Hundreds of thou-sands of persons without shelter, mutilated, having escaped from a conflict that never ends, wandering from town to town to finally wash up in the capital...
...Le Monde put the matter superbly: Of course one must make diplomatic allowances for such a tide of compliments...
...myths assn R-NY) ntellectualshldagams Rep...
...Then, again, it just may be that one man's local angle is simply another man's neighboring saxon...
...An endless flea market, with people selling everything from cigarettes (not in packages, but singly) to food coupons...
...These reactions are commendable, as is the growing realization that Cuba is yet another country that solves its internal problems by resorting to the Gulag...
...This is about Iran, written by an Iranian woman, Helene Kafi, who after nine years of exile, sneaked back into the country under an assumed name and wrote a superb piece of reportage, "In the Country of the Big Lie...
...Space being at a premium, I give you a couple of highlights: The very legitimacy of South Africa is openly challenged by the countries of the Communist Second World and those of the underdeveloped Third World...
...Let's hope that Senator Lugar reads Italian...
...Or must we wait another decade until we catch up with the understanding that the rest of the world is acquiring, as in the case of Cuba...
...Would it not be tantamount to political suicide in the USSR to give priority to competence and efficiency, thus leaving oneself open to accusations of "slackness toward imperial-ism...
...Are you listening, Mrs...
...Couldn't we spend our defense dollars better elsewhere...
...NAME ADDRESS env 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986...
...The second outstanding article also comes from France, in the July 18 issue of L' Express...
...It would mean a return to the 1970s, or before...
...It was known...
...M. Gorbachev has nothing suicidal about him...
...And finally, the message to the West: In the very moment that Botha needs his greatest support from domestic public opinion (to carry out his reforms and abolish apartheid) he finds that his own legitimacy is under attack on an international level...
...Does the Soviet Union believe in strategic defense...
...Finally, from the Italian Socialist publication Mondoperaio comes the best article on South Africa...
...As technologies, strategies, and costs are being examined under the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), scientists and politicians alike are vigorously arguing about the consequences of building defensive systems to deter nuclear war...
...Postage and handling will be paid by NSIC...
...Total Amount Enclosed Send To: STATE AS All orders must be prepaid with check or money order...
...On July 12, an editorial appeared on Mitterrand's trip to Moscow and his conversations with Gorbachev...
...she chose not to pay attention...
...What would it look like...
...Will "Star Wars" make war more or less likely...
...We would do well to remember what Revel wrote in the September 1, 1979 issue of L' Express: The task of coldly judging Cuba has not been easy...
...After telling amazing stories of corruption and decadence in the wealthier quarters of Tehran, Kafi describes the misery of the great mass of the population: "The Iran-Iraq war is everywhere present...
...Outside US orders must be made payable in US currency...
...Is it realistic to proceed from the premise that M. Gorbachev's priority is the reform of the economy...
...National Strategy Information Center, Inc...
...The First World of industrialized democracies, afflicted by post-colonial guilt complexes that make them a priori emotive allies of the blacks, is divided and uncertain, quite aside from the merits of the case...
...Ten years were required before it was first suggested, towards 1970, that the economic failures were not solely the result of the American blockade, and that the Gulag of the Caribbean was proportionally comparable to that of its Soviet big brother and superior to those of the Latin American dictatorships of the right...
...The Intelligent Layperson's Guide to "Star Wars" In the few years since Ronald Reagan delivered his famous "Star Wars" speech, the idea of defense against nuclear attack has assumed a high profile in the national defense debate...
...was in the minority compared to the parties of the right...
...6.95 per copy...
...Dept...
...some sensible—and much needed—light de a leakproof i "This `Guide sheds sop c. ,,he authors prTovifated leak SDI...
...It is among their ranks that unfaithful women are stoned to death after a simple accusation, minor drug traffickers are executed, and petty criminals amputated according to the law of talion...
...on ahotly-debated topic...
...Again, one can only ask, where are our investigative journalists...
...A minor masterpiece...
...Thus, people like Mary McCarthy should be embarrassed when she meets Valladares...
...The Intelligent Layperson's Guide to "Star Wars" also includes illustrations, quotes from a range of experts, a strategic defense glossary, and a list for further reading...
...Until now, that is...
...The ANC does not condemn violence because it wants the radicalization of the political conflict...
...What does the future hold for this living nightmare...
...The preceding matters make for merely a random sample of how Indiana has dominated the news in recent months...
...The legacy of Khomeini is described by Kafi's guide in terms of macabre humor: "In his testament, the Imam has left his white beard to the chief eunuch of the Califate (Rafsanjani, the Speaker of the Parliament), his right arm to the living martyr of the revolution (Khamenei, President of the Republic), his eyes to the little mole (Ahmed, his son), and Iran to Gorbachev, Thatcher and Reagan...
...Economic sanctions and disinvestment of the United States, the countries of the Commonwealth and of the Common Market have had as their result a drop in productivity...
...POLICY • Will "Star Wars" doom arms control...
...Paradoxically there is a process of resegregation along economic lines...
...Q2 150 E. 58th Street New York, NY 10155 Enclosed is a check or money order for copy(ies) of The Intelligent Layperson's Guide to "Star Wars...
...Whether this challenge to free-enterprise balloting will tip the balance in November depends on the electorate's capacity for righteous indignation, which is ordinarily an indulgence of the enlightened middle class, a group not abundantly represented in the Eighth District...
...And what scenes she describes in Tehran...
...One example is the tendency of employers to fire the politicized blacks, especially those in the trade unions (who earn higher wages) and replace them with white and "colored" workers...
...As the strategic defense debate continues into the late-1980s, the Guide will serve as a valuable issue brief for busy citizens concerned about future defense options...
...In a poll in April, Botha's party...
...Reagan...
...Why do we have no revelations about Syria, Libya, Iran, South Yemen, and the rest...
...Botha's program can only be carried out if there is public order, and this can be achieved only with prestige or with force...
...That it should have any impact on the outcome of a congressional election exceeds the ken of those who understand the importance of recreational corruption to a southern Indiana county with few advantages...
...The first comes from Le Monde, in Paris, which is probably the most-improved foreign publication (the most-improved American newspaper is the Washington Times, which has become a nationally significant publication since Arnaud de Borchgrave took it over...
...Hoosier spies (Pollard and Pelton) for Israel and Russia, the Supreme Court's decision on the Re-publican party's right to gerrymander the General Assembly as well as its decision on the limits of federal authority in Bloomington's "Baby Doe" case, the valiant struggle of William Schroeder of Jasper and his artificial heart, the role of Senator Richard Lugar of Marion County and Admiral John Poindexter of Odon, the President's national security adviser, in keeping the world safe for democracy—all these tend to prove the existence of an international Hoosier conspiracy...
...And are these failures not inherent in the nature and the functioning of Soviet institutions...
...It would be easy and cruel to remind some of their more inept dithyrambs written about the agricultural prowess of Cuba, its "direct democracy," and its support for human rights...
...The French president had been quite effusive in his comments about the Soviet dictator ("a modern man . . . representative of one of the world's largest peoples and fully aware of the realities of the present and the tasks of the future . . .") and about his desire for peace ("the emphasis that M. Gorbachev constantly places on detente is genuine...
...Yet by all rights, the United States should have come to realize this many years ago...
...As a contribution to the current debate, the National Strategy Information Center presents The Intelligent Layperson's Guide to "Star Wars" ($6.95, paper...
...The court of last resort for these suffering masses is the Martyr's Foundation, in the streets around which one hears only "the laments of the widows and the orphans," and in front of the doors of which mothers abandon their children, hoping that someone will feed them...
...The Crawford countian's custom of determining the market value of his franchise has usually had a direct effect only on county commissioners, township trustees, and school board members...
...Thus in the townships, the black cities, unemployment is destined to climb higher...
...That was seven years ago...
...He believed the peopleought to know something, but not all at once...
Vol. 19 • October 1986 • No. 10
